Harboring Illusions/Under the Skin of Circumstance /// I grew up in an era in which science was a sort of state religion. Its rationalism— and what more knowledge could make possible— were promoted as boundless and blameless: innately, profoundly good. The idea was that science presented us with facts, and that facts would prevent us from doing the awful things that we as humans have done, over and over. It was a more innocent time, you might say. Or just one in which, before the internet, terrible secrets were better kept than they are now.